overseer.nvim
October 20, 2025 ยท View on GitHub
A task runner and job management plugin for Neovim
- Features
- Requirements
- Installation
- Quick start
- Tutorials
- Guides
- Explanation
- Third-party integrations
- Recipes
- Reference
- Screenshots
Features
- Built-in support for many task frameworks (make, npm, cargo,
.vscode/tasks.json, etc) - Simple integration with
vim.diagnosticand quickfix - UI for viewing and managing tasks
- Quick controls for common actions (restart task, rerun on save, or user-defined functions)
- Extreme customizability. Very easy to attach custom logic to tasks
- Define and run complex multi-stage workflows
- Support for
preLaunchTaskwhen used with nvim-dap
Requirements
- Neovim 0.11+ (for older versions, use a nvim-0.x branch)
Installation
overseer supports all the usual plugin managers
lazy.nvim
{
'stevearc/overseer.nvim',
---@module 'overseer'
---@type overseer.SetupOpts
opts = {},
}
Packer
require("packer").startup(function()
use({
"stevearc/overseer.nvim",
config = function()
require("overseer").setup()
end,
})
end)
Paq
require("paq")({
{ "stevearc/overseer.nvim" },
})
vim-plug
Plug 'stevearc/overseer.nvim'
dein
call dein#add('stevearc/overseer.nvim')
Pathogen
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/stevearc/overseer.nvim.git ~/.vim/bundle/
Neovim native package
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/stevearc/overseer.nvim.git \
"${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}"/nvim/site/pack/overseer/start/overseer.nvim
Quick start
Add the following to your init.lua
require("overseer").setup()
To get started, all you need to know is :OverseerRun to select and start a task, and :OverseerToggle to open the task list.
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/506791/189036898-05edcd62-42e7-4bbb-ace2-746b7c8c567b.mp4
If you don't see any tasks from :OverseerRun, it might mean that your task runner is not yet supported. There is currently support for VS Code tasks, make, npm, cargo, and some others.
If you want to define custom tasks for your project, I'd recommend starting with the tutorials.
Tutorials
Guides
- Custom tasks
- Actions
- Custom components
- Task events
- Customizing built-in tasks
- Customizing the task appearance in the task list
- Parsing output
- Running tasks sequentially
- VS Code tasks
Explanation
Third-party integrations
Recipes
- Run a quick command like with
:!or:term - Restart last task
- Run shell scripts in the current directory
- Directory-local tasks with exrc
- Asynchronous :Make similar to vim-dispatch
- Asynchronous :Grep command
- Create a window that displays the most recent task output
Reference
- Setup options
- Commands
- Highlight groups
- Lua API
- setup(opts)
- new_task(opts)
- toggle(opts)
- open(opts)
- close()
- list_tasks(opts)
- run_task(opts, callback)
- preload_task_cache(opts, cb)
- clear_task_cache(opts)
- run_action(task, name)
- add_template_hook(opts, hook)
- remove_template_hook(opts, hook)
- register_template(defn)
- register_alias(name, components, override)
- create_task_output_view(winid, opts)
- overseer.Task
- Task:serialize()
- Task:clone()
- Task:add_component(comp)
- Task:add_components(components)
- Task:set_component(comp)
- Task:set_components(components)
- Task:get_component(name)
- Task:remove_component(name)
- Task:remove_components(names)
- Task:has_component(name)
- Task:subscribe(event, callback)
- Task:unsubscribe(event, callback)
- Task:is_pending()
- Task:is_running()
- Task:is_complete()
- Task:is_disposed()
- Task:get_bufnr()
- Task:open_output(direction)
- Task:broadcast(name)
- Task:dispatch(name)
- Task:inc_reference()
- Task:dec_reference()
- Task:dispose(force)
- Task:restart(force_stop)
- Task:start()
- Task:stop()
- Components
- Strategies
- Parameters
Screenshots
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/506791/180620617-2b1bb0a8-5f39-4936-97c2-04c92f1e2974.mp4